


Long Way Back to the Light

by BoxOnTheNile



Series: To the Names of Our Wounds [3]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: A'rynasea is semi-sentient and loves its pilot very much, Codependency, Genderfluid Locus, Major Character Injury, Nile's at it again, Other, Past Emotional Manipulation, Past Lolix, Trans Dick Simmons, Walking Disaster Samuel Ortez, and it wasn't good but it was at one point and that's the worst part, and the recovery thereof, canon compliant to s15, inventing more ships, make way for my Locus headcanons because they are abundant, mostly anyway, past unhealthy relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-30
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-04-30 03:03:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 13,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14487420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BoxOnTheNile/pseuds/BoxOnTheNile
Summary: In hindsight, he shouldn't be surprised. Sam Ortez was known for his penchant for falling in love too easy. Locus thought that part of him was dead, but he'd been finding pieces of Ortez(himself) a lot, lately.It's not even Agent Washington. That would have madesense.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even have an explanation.
> 
> So I hc Locus as he/they genderfluid and kept switching pronouns while writing and I think my edit got it all back to "he" but if it didn't let me know bc I'm still not sure if I'm pulling that hc into this fic.   
> Edit: guess i am

_It's a long road up to recovery from here, a long way back to the light._  
_A long road up to recovery from here, a long way to making it right._  
_-Recovery by Frank Turner_

* * *

 

It starts with a haircut. 

Actually, if Locus is honest with himself, it started just over a year ago, with the Truth, but it's easier to trace it back to the haircut. 

See, the haircut is tangible evidence that someone cares about his well-being, enough to make him tea and argue about his health, and, really, no one has cared that much about Locus for a long time. 

~~He'd thought-~~

~~Once, Felix-~~

A long time.

In hindsight, he shouldn't be surprised. Sam Ortez was known for his penchant for falling in love too easy. Locus thought that part of him was dead, but he'd been finding pieces of Ortez( ~~himself~~ ) a lot, lately. 

It's not even Agent Washington. That would have made _sense_.

He can't ever go back to the Chorusan moon, obviously. The Sim Troopers are deceptively perceptive, judging by what Captain Caboose said that morning, over a week ago.

_“It's okay to miss your best friend, even if he hurt you.”_

~~(Was it?)~~

He fled the moon as soon as he had the chance, with Private Donut trying to press _banana bread_ into his hands. (He can't bring himself to eat it. It's frozen in A’rynasea’s cold storage.) It's been days since then, and he's tired. He's never slept well during space travel, and there's nowhere safe to go, not with Hargrove’s lackeys still looking for him. The UNSC is trying to round all of them up, but it's slow going, especially since, _technically_ , Locus is one of those “lackeys”.

He did manage to pull everything from his and Felix's accounts before they were frozen, took the very sizable sum of money, and anonymously donated nearly all of it back to Chorus as a relief fund.

(The rest, a tiny fraction, nearly a million, he sent to a small family in Ithaca with a message. _“I'm sorry. I miss you. -S.O.”_ )

 

* * *

 

It’s suffocating, sometimes, the hollow space in his chest. This newfound… _infatuation_ is a grain of sand in the echoing void of his soul, an empty place where _He_ used to be, capital letter and everything, because who was Locus if not _Felix’s partner._

_“We need each other.”_

He wishes he could pry out his heart and cut loose the parts of Felix still there. He wishes he could burn the feeling of his hands from his skin. He wishes, he wishes, he wishes—

He wishes “we need each other” had been another one of Felix’s lies, but Felix didn’t lie often, just weaponized the truth. 

(A lifetime ago, Gates had said three words. Locus wonders now if they were a lie, or a weaponized truth.)

Somehow, he makes his way back to Reprise, to a kitchen counter, and he doesn’t sleep, just _breathes_ in the only place free from his ghosts, until he hears stirring in one of the rooms and runs again. 

He never goes back to Ithaca, and he never goes back to Chorus. The one year anniversary hits and there’s a celebration in the new Chorusan capital of Brioso. Locus finds a distant mining colony and drinks until he stops remembering a shitty apartment in a shitty city and a heartbeat pressed against his own.

He goes back to Reprise, sleeps on their kitchen counter, flees before dawn.

He takes a bounty, turns it in, sends most the money as a donation to the Donald Doyle Memorial Hospital. 

He goes back to Reprise, paces circles around A’rynasea but doesn't go in.

He leaves. 

He goes back.

He leaves.

He goes back. He goes back. He goes back.

It's the only place Locus can ever leave Isaac behind.

 

* * *

 

Locus slips into the Reds and Blues’ kitchen around four in the morning. He has no plans to do anything but catch his breath. But he's tired, so fucking tired, and this is the first place he's felt safe in so long…

He wakes to a soft _clunk_ and stares blearily at a mug for several seconds.

“We have a couch. Also, sleeping in armor has been medically proven to cause spinal issues.” Captain Simmons is watching him from the other side of the counter, oversized orange tshirt nearly slipping off one skinny shoulder. 

Locus lifts his head from the counter slowly, turning to face him. The captain’s face goes red, but Locus is under the impression that he’s an easy blusher. Most of their last interaction had found Simmons’s cheeks stained pink. 

Fuck. He was supposed to be gone by now, he shouldn't have been here in the first place, he-

“Locus?” Simmons cocks his head a little, frowns. “Oh, you're doing that thing. The Wash thing.”

“The _what_ thing?” Locus asks.

“The Wash thing.” Simmons glances at the hallway like mentioning “the Wash thing” will cause Washington to appear. He then very quickly ruffles his hair into a mess that, actually, looks very similar to how Washington keeps his own hair. “ _I'm Agent Washington and I fucked up once and now I never deserve good things again. Now I'm going to stare into the distance and say cryptic one-liners until Tucker makes me take a fucking nap._ ” Simmons shrugs. “The Wash thing.”

“I don't do that.”

“You literally just were. Maybe I should make you take a nap somewhere that isn't our _kitchen counter_.”

“You don't have to-”

“We have a spare room,” Simmons bulldozes over him. “Technically, it was Tucker's, but he moved into Wash's room months ago. I'd offer my old room but-” He cuts off, flushing darker. “But I haven't moved all my stuff in with Grif yet.” The fingers of his prosthetic flex.

Oh. _Oh_.

Locus has no right to be disappointed. He doesn't. He can remember Felix complaining about how the two were constantly dancing around each other on Chorus. It's _good_ they finally got it together. 

Simmons is frowning at him. “Okay, I think that was the Wash Thing again. You're sleeping in bed. C’mon.”

And, well. Sam Ortez never could tell the people he liked “no.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: ok I have two fics for my overwatch rarepoly and the borderlands longfic and the rewrite of BIIB. thats enough multichapter WIPs.
> 
> Locus: ::exists::
> 
> Me, already working on this and a backstory fic: understandable have a nice day


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey this references the first fic in this series so please make sure you've read that!

_I'm so afraid_  
_Of what you have to say_  
_'Cause I am quiet now_  
_And silence gives you space_  
_-Fake You Out by Twenty One Pilots_

 

* * *

 

_"What're we supposed to do, Megs?" Isaac sounds tired. "Call Veteran Affairs? We don't mean anything to them."_

_"There has to be something," she insists._

_"Not much one attorney can do, even the wife of a staff sergeant." Mason laid a hand on his wife's shoulder._

_She sighs and settles on the couch next Sam. "It isn't fair. You fought for them, you almost **died**." _

_"They're trying to finish the job," Isaac says. It doesn't sound like a joke._

* * *

 

Locus wakes with his heart pounding. The hollow space in his chest aches, and for several minutes he struggles to do anything but just breathe.

He hasn't had a panic attack for a long time, and he can't remember ever being alone for one. He reaches for the memory of what to do but they're all full of _Isaac, Isaac, Isaac_ and he slides back under.

Finally, it lets up, and he shivers. He's fine, he's _fine_ , there's nothing here that will hurt him, just bedsheets and shadows.

He can't stay here. He can't let guilt and longing taint this place, the only escape from everything he's trying to leave behind.

_Felix can't take this, too_ some part of him thinks, and he hates it, as much as he knows it's right.

He wraps himself in steel, activates his cloaking, and slips right by Private Donut on his way out. They probably don’t realize he’s gone until A’rynasea hits the atmosphere.

 

* * *

 

Locus has divided _Him_ into _Isaac_ and _Felix_. It’s probably not healthy, but it’s too hard to reconcile the two. _Isaac_ was two bodies pressed together at three in the morning, afraid to sleep and see the corpses of their squadmates laid out around them. _Felix_ was fury and greed and pride. _Isaac_ was safety, warmth, home when Sam had forgotten what home was.

Felix was _I’m doing this for me._

Locus has spent a year trying to find the point where one crossed to the other, but he can’t. There’s no sudden change, no definitive moment, just a slow decay.

He tries to do the same with himself, that separation, but he can see too much of Sam in everything he’s done. Sam was/is scared, has always been scared, and decided apathy was the better option.

He thought he wanted to be empty. He didn’t realize emptiness hurt so much more than fear.

 

* * *

 

A’rynasea chimes a notification. Locus isn’t actively tracking any bounties at the moment, so it confuses him. He pulls up the command screen.

There’s a message.

 

**_GRF:_** _hey asshole you made caboose cry_  
_**GRF:** locus_  
_**GRF:** locus answer ur fucking texts_  
_**GRF:** is2g i know u can see these_  


The last thing he should do is answer. What could he say? I left because I might be falling in love with your boyfriend but I’m still hopelessly pining after my dead ex that I stepped back and let you murder? I can’t come back because I refuse to let Felix poison this like he did everything else he touched? I don’t know who I am without him but when I’m in your kitchen I finally feel like I can fucking breathe and I don’t deserve that after everything I’ve done?

 

**_LCS:_** _That was not my intent._  
_**GRF:** JFC it actually worked_  
_**GRF:** when lopez said he had ur ships comm code i wasnt sure if i believed him_  
_**GRF:** last person who left caboose without saying goodbye fucking died and u up and disappear?_  
_**GRF:** dick move_  
_**LCS:** I didn’t have time to speak to Captain Caboose._

There. It’s just brusque enough to be insulting, just detached enough to offend.

 

_**GRF:** apparently u didnt have time to talk to any of us_

 

Good, perfect, he’s angry.

 

_**GRF:** ull just have to come back and apologize_  
_**GRF:** sims says u broke his rules anyway_

 

No. No. Abort mission.There’s a different kind of guilt sitting in his gut now, because he did, didn’t he? Simm- Captain Simmons made that rule months ago: _“New Base Rule, right now: you can't sleep here without staying for breakfast.”_

 

_“Damn it, you two! Next time, come for breakfast. I’d feel better knowing you had at least one good meal in you.”_

 

_Neither of them can meet Megan’s eyes. “Sorry, Megs,” Isaac mutters._

 

Locus stands and walks away from the command screen. He can’t deal with the past right now.

 

* * *

 

If Locus had to pick a moment and call it the start of their fall, he’d pick the Lozano “Incident”. He’d wrestled Isaac into a chair to stitch closed the bullet wound, and the second the last suture was tied off, Isaac- riding the high of adrenaline and endorphins- had lunged, kissing him breathless.

They’d fucked there on the living room floor, backs and thighs red with carpet burn. _“Isaac,”_ Sam had sung like a prayer, and he’d said _“Call me Felix.”_

But other than that, nothing had changed. They still paid rent and bought groceries and tried to survive the nightmares and the flashbacks and the anxiety. They still had dinner with Mason and Megan once a week, still curved around each at night to stave off the chill of their bedroom.

Maybe that’s not it at all. Maybe it went wrong when Megan’s pregnancy had complications and Mason was constantly afraid of losing them both.

When did Isaac start being afraid of him?

That’s the piece he can’t place. _Felix_ had been scared of him, but Isaac claimed to love him.

When the alien AI told him the Truth, it had said only one of them needed the other to survive. Locus doesn’t believe that anymore, if he ever did. It had said Felix was afraid, that he was trying to keep him broken and under his control. For how long? Was everything a lie, a story, stringing Locus, _Sam_ , along for almost a decade? Longer?

Sometimes, he wishes he could just ask Felix what happened, why that bright, fumbling thing they had went sour.

He’s not sure Felix ever knew, either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me, taking my ptsd and dropping it on fictional characters: Coping™
> 
> I didn't really edit this but im _slightly_ drunk nd I have to be awake in six hours so if i fucked up lemme know.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stealth updating at 5am but what're u gonna do
> 
> Someone called this Locus's World Famous Garbage Taste in Men take two and I need all of you to know that
> 
> Trigger warnings for discussion of injury, discussion of blood, and emetophobia, all non-graphic

_Hello, hello_  
_I'm not where I'm supposed to be_  
_I hope that you're missing me_  
_'Cause it makes me feel young_  
_-Sober Up by AJR_

* * *

He’s a _fucking moron_.

He forgot to check his six, and now there’s a bullet lodged in the broad muscles of his back.

Locus staggers into A’rynasea, jaw clenched as every step tugs on the wound. The kevlar survival suit under his armor is soaked in blood, but it did its job- the bullet didn’t tear past his ribs and kill him. If the shooter had been a little bit closer…

Thus, he’s a fucking moron.

It could still kill him, if he can’t stop the bleeding. He can’t reach it himself, and he’s halfway through calling Felix’s name when he remembers. Grief swells and he spends seconds he doesn’t have trying to remind himself how to breathe.

A’rynasea flashes the lights, and Locus pushes off the wall. He’s short on time, his head is already pounding, and he trips twice on his way to virtual clinic in medical supplies he has tucked away. It takes far too long to strip himself of his armor and undersuit, and the bandage he wraps around his ribs won’t last.

He needs stitches. He needs the bullet out. He needs the world to stop spinning.

A’rynasea’s control panel pings. It has pulled Locus’s messages up, cursor blinking. He makes it into the chair and huffs out a pained sound when it presses against the hole in his back.

**LCS:** i mihgt need help

There’s a second with nothing, then

**GRF:** holy fuck u typod are u dying???

**LCS:** no, yes. mayeb. bleeding 

**GRF:** FUCK

**GRF:** can the locus pocus get u here

A’rynasea’s lights pulse violet, then green, and the engines start on their own.

**LCS:** yes

**LCS:** need stitchs

**LCS:** 2 hours

**GRF:** wash or carolina can do those

**GRF:** sims wants to know if u have pressure on the wound

**LCS:** y

**GRF:** y? OH yes ok

**GRF:** fuck this

A request for an audio connection pops up. He stares it for several moments. It goes away.

**GRF:** ACCEPT THE FUCKING CALL

**SMS:** Locus? It’s Simmons. Accept the call.

Another request appears. He accepts the call.

There’s a cacophony of noise that A’rynasea immediately dampens, followed by Simmons shrieking, “Everyone shut the fuck up, he answered!”

“How much blood have you lost?” There’s Agent Carolina, trying to control the situation. Mason was like that: trying to gather all the information so he could make the best plan. 

“Not sure. I’m in mild hypovolemic shock, but I have pressure on the wound. The bullet’s still there.” His vision is swimming. When did that start? “Confusion and dizziness.”

She swears. “You said two hours?” 

The engines start to whine. The light changes subtly, and the sound dampens. The ETA on the panel changes to an hour and a half. He forwards the updated time to Grif’s messages. He hears the ping through the connection. 

“I like that number better,” he hears Captain Caboose say. 

“Me, too,” Simmons agrees, and the grief from before returns with a vengeance, because this? The way things seemed better for just a moment, knowing that Sim- Captain Simmons wanted him to be okay? Felt like a _betrayal_.

His next breath shudders, and there’s a concerned “Locus?”

He can’t, he can’t, he can’t-

“Locus, you need to breathe,” Agent Washington is insisting softly. “You’re having a panic attack, but you need to breathe. You’ve lost too much blood, if you hyperventilate, you _will_ pass out. Just… breathe with me, okay?”

A’rynasea filters and broadcasts the sound of Washington’s breath, steady and even, and Locus remembers this, this is familiar, and he surrounds himself and sinks into the sound. At some point, someone- Captain Tucker?- starts speaking softly, but the words don’t stick, just fill the silence with static. They all speak, saying nothing, or maybe something, but there’s something warm and wet dripping down his back.

“Holy fuck that’s a lot of blood.”

“Caboose, help me move him.”

And hands are _touching him_ , and the last time hands were on his bare skin it was Felix and it was bruising and angry and he _doesn’t want this_.

“Locus, Locus, it’s us!” Broad, warm hands cup his face and his vision is filled with mismatched eyes. “C’mon. It’s us, we got you. We got you.”

He nods.

“Okay. Caboose is gonna pick you up. That means he's gotta touch you. You can't hit very hard right now but you still hurt his feelings.”

“It's okay! You are scared and hurting, and I touched without asking. I have to ask Agent Washington, too.”

“Right, asking. Can Caboose touch you?”

He nods. The hands on his face let go, and arms slide under his and pull him to his feet. His stomach swoops, and he heaves.

“Oh, gross.”

“There's no blood in it, that's a good sign. But, yeah, gross.”

“Simmons,” Locus mumbles into Caboose's shirt. Caboose is big enough to carry Locus in his arms instead of over his shoulder, and Locus is not small. 

“Yes, that is Simmons and Tucker.” Caboose’s voice vibrates pleasantly in his chest. 

Locus loses consciousness. 

 

* * *

 

He wakes in the same bed as a month ago. There's water on the bedside table, sweatpants folded at the foot of the bed, and clean bandages around his chest. As he sits up, he feels the tug of a line of sutures. 

This isn't his first gunshot wound, unfortunately, so he knows the drill. Replace fluids, reduce strain on the damaged muscles, keep the injury clean. The bullet had lodged itself right below his left shoulder blade. It likely clipped his armor. He should probably have his arm in a sling. 

Locus takes slow sips of the water, making sure he wasn't going to vomit it back up. Hypovolemic shock is still a problem, with the way his head throbs, so he needs to make sure it stays down. 

He's halfway through the glass when the door cracks open. Locus freezes, tense, and hisses when that pulls on his stitches.

“You're alive!” Simmons sounds… glad? “I mean, we weren't like, worried, because you're _Locus_ , but- oh god I just realized how that sounds. What I meant was, you're basically unkillable, right? Right?”

Simmons’s voice is climbing to a frequency only dogs and hyper-intelligent assault rifles can hear, and that does not help his migraine. “Captain,” Locus interrupts, “I'm fine.”

“No the fuck you're not.” Tucker breezes past Simmons with a plastic cup full of orange juice and a mug of something steaming. “So I'm not a medical professional, but I'm pretty sure you treat blood loss with more blood. We don't know your blood type and not of us are universal donors, so you get to make your own. Finish that-” he nods to the water glass- “and then you get to see if you can keep these down, and _then_ you get to go the fuck back to sleep.” He sets the cups down on the nightstand. It looks like the mug is full of chicken broth.

Locus stares at those cups. “I. You shouldn't-”

“Don't, dude,” Tucker cuts him off. “Donut is fixing your armor. Lopez and Sarge are running diagnostics on your ship; looks like you nearly fried the engines getting here. Wash is being his weird Freelancer self and doing maintenance on your weapons. Like Grif said: we got you.”

Locus doesn't know what to say. He feels like he doesn't need to say anything. 

They've got him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy FUCK I love Lavernius Tucker


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ::punches my imposter syndrome in the face:: This is a good fic!

_Plants awoke and they slowly grow_  
_Beneath the skin_  
_So breathe in, breathe out_  
_Let the human in_  
_-Human by Of Monsters and Men_

 

* * *

 

Locus manages to stay put for forty-six hours before he knows he has to leave. He spends most of that time asleep while his body works on replacing the blood he lost, but by forty hours he knows he's fine. Mostly. It hurts like a motherfucker and Simmons insists he keep his arm in a sling, but he's perfectly capable of handling that himself.

He proceeds to put off leaving for another four hours. First it's because Caboose seats himself on the bedroom floor and tells a story that makes very little sense(time travel via explosives is impossible, right?). Then Lopez bitches in Spanish for twenty minutes about every person on the moon, including Locus himself, and hearing his first language after almost seven years is far nicer than he will ever admit to anyone. _Then_ Simmons tells him he ordered a kettle for their next supply drop, because he noticed how Locus cringed when he microwaved water last time, and Locus forgets why he wanted to leave in the first place. 

But he overhears Tucker reminding Washington about a call to Doctor Grey and feels like he's being crushed by guilt that threatens to ruin him. 

He can't stay. He doesn't want to go. 

Private Donut had poked his head into Locus’s room(not his room, he wasn't staying) yesterday morning to let him know his armor was clean, repaired, and stored neatly away in A’rynasea. Locus just has to get from ~~his~~ room to his ship without getting stopped. Obviously, the best way to manage this is his already tried and true method of leaving at 4 a.m.

That will bring him to fifty-eight hours since he woke on Reprise, the longest he's been in one place since he learned the Truth. That feels significant. He's not sure why. 

Staying awake is far harder than it should be, but he manages, and slips out of the bedroom several hours after he hears everyone settle.

There's a light on in the kitchen. There shouldn't be: Simmons loops the house before he heads to bed every night, making sure all the lights are turned off, windows are closed, and doors are locked. An hour and a half later, either Washington or Carolina head out to patrol around the house one last time. 

That was at least four hours ago. No one should be up.

But Washington is hunched over the counter in the same seat Locus has frequented, staring into a cup of coffee without actually seeing it, silent and still. His eyes lift after a moment and look at him. 

“Leaving?” Washington asks. Locus doesn't answer, and Washington turns back to his cup. “I'm not going to stop you. Believe it or not, we don't want to trap you here. They just want to give you the same thing they gave me.”

The last time Locus was alone with Washington, the Freelancer was bleeding out in A’rynasea’s passenger seat, Locus trying to find the perfect balance between pressure on his throat to slow the bleeding while not strangling him. The bandages from their last meeting are gone, but there are small starburst scars on either side of his neck. 

“What did they give you?” He doesn't know why he asks, but some part of him needs to know. 

“People like us don't get second chances,” Washington says simply. Locus feels like he's been shot again. “We get to spend the rest of our lives trying to make up for our mistakes. But they—” and Wash gestures to Locus, behind him, at the hallway beyond— “make it feel like maybe there's a chance I'll do it. Like maybe I was worth saving.” He shakes his head. “I didn't deserve it. Neither do you. But they're still offering.” Washington stares him down. His eyes are icy blue and sharp. “What are going to choose?”

And, for a second, Locus can see his choices clearly. He can't carry on the way he has been. If he tries, it _will_ kill him, whether with a bullet or with his failure to leave the past where it belongs. 

Or he stays. He accepts what these men want to give him, and he tries to heal. 

Washington is right. He doesn't deserve it. But god, he _wants_ it.

“Yeah,” Washington says softly. He hooks his ankle around the other barstool at the counter and drags it out. It's an invitation, and Locus tentatively accepts. Washington does nothing to break the new silence, just goes back to staring into his mug of black coffee. 

Locus is going to regret this decision. He knows this, has already accepted it. There's not a choice he's made in over nine years that he doesn't regret, there's no reason for this one to be different. 

“Thanks,” Washington says suddenly. Locus twists to look at him. “For sitting with me,” he clarifies. “Makes it easier to remember that this is real.”

“You should not still be hallucinating,” Locus says without thinking, and immediately cringes. Words have never been his strong suit. 

To his surprise, Washington covers his mouth in an attempt to muffle honest-to-god giggles. Locus's heart pointedly does not react. Of course not. It's still clinging to its pointless crush on Captain Simmons. 

“I'm not. I just can't always trust my own memory. Ask for Tucker's ‘Care and Feeding of Washingtons’ guide in the morning.”

“It is morning, Agent Washington,” Locus points out, because he's still stuck on ‘Care and Feeding of Washingtons’. The Freelancer snickers softly again. 

“You can just call me Wash,” he says. “You saved my life.”

Locus scrambles for the right thing to say, but Washington— _Wash_ doesn't seem to need anything more from him. 

So he just sits, silent, trying to talk himself out of staying and not quite accomplishing it before Simmons pads into the kitchen at six a.m. 

Simmons looks at them and sighs. “There's two of them now,” he mumbles to himself. “Wash, how long have you been awake?”

“Almost forty-eight hours,” Wash says. 

Simmons takes his coffee cup away from him. Then he points directly at Wash's face. “I'm ratting you out.”

Wash sits straight up and pales. “You wouldn't.”

Simmons is already backing towards the hall. “I'm getting Tucker right now. Locus, hold him.”

“What?” 

But Simmons is already down the hall, opening one of the doors and disappearing inside. Wash puts his face directly on the counter. 

“Sweet fucking Christ, Wash, did you drag Locus into your melodrama?” Tucker leans against the entrance to the kitchen. He looks Wash in the eye for a second, then casts his gaze upwards as though asking for strength. “Alright, Wash, it's bedtime. Simmons, deal with Locus.” He strides forward and holds out his hand. “C’mon, babe.”

Locus watches them leave. “When did-”

“Chorus,” Simmons tells him. “Half the army was betting on when they'd stop dancing around each other. They still argue all the fuckin’ time, though. They just-” He cuts himself off and flushes. 

Locus's stomach bursts into butterflies and it's _ridiculous,_ he hasn't felt this way since he was a teenager. Not even Isaac made him feel like this. He's so glad blushes don't show on his face.

He accepts the tea Simmons gives him and tries to figure out how he's going to survive this, because Simmons hums while he works and it _isn't fair._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did u know i love tuckington? so much?? i'll try to keep it lowkey i promise.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ::rolls on in with a new chapter::

_This is for the ones who stand_  
_For the ones who try again_  
_For the ones who need a hand_  
_For the ones that think they can_  
_-Comes and Goes by Greg Laswell_

 

* * *

 

“Can we talk?”

Locus looks up from his place on his bedroom floor. Donut had shoved a basket of laundry into his arms twenty minutes ago and disappeared, so Locus just sort of… sat down and started folding. He lowers the sweatpants he was fighting with into his lap. “Yes?”

“Good.” Tucker sits on the floor across from him and pulls a shirt from the basket, lays it flat. “So. Uh. We kinda set up a watch, the first couple hours you were unconscious? You were out almost a day and we were worried you were gonna keel over on us for a bit. And, uh. You talk. In your sleep.”

Locus cringes. He does. He knows he does. Isaac and Megan used to tease him ruthlessly. 

“It was mostly a lot of mumbling? No real words? Except for my turn, I think. Because-” Tucker throws a look at the door. “If I close that, will it fuck with your PTSD?” When Locus shakes his head, Tucker leans over to push it shut. “You said Felix's name in your sleep.”

The breath is knocked from his lungs. This is the first time Locus has heard His name out loud since- well, since Grif said it five months ago. He drops his gaze resolutely to his lap and starts folding again. 

Tucker waits until he's done with the pants and is staring down a crop top that says _“killin’ it”_ in cursive. “Did you love him?”

It takes actual effort not to rip the fabric in his hands. How does he answer that? _Yes_ , he had, he _still did_ , and he knows he can't expect them to understand. 

Tucker doesn't push for an answer, just sorts the laundry that's already folded into piles. When he's done with that, he starts on the rest of it.

“Does it matter?” Locus finally manages. 

“Not to me, not really.” This time, Tucker is the one that hesitates, carefully lining up the hems of a pair of shorts. “I mean, I thought I did for a while there.”

The shirt tears. Tucker swears loudly. 

Of course. Felix had to get in one last betrayal, one hurt from beyond the grave. That fucking AI was right. Only one of them needed the other, but it was never Felix. 

The ever-present guilt gives way to rage, but there’s nowhere for it to go. Felix is dead, and it wasn’t Tucker’s fault he fell for his half-truths. 

Tucker carefully pries the ruined shirt from Locus hands, jarring him back to the here and now. “You want me talk about it or just leave it the fuck alone for now?”

“Just. No.”

“Yeah, okay. So!” Tucker drops the shirt behind him. “First, let's agree: the dryer destroyed Donut’s shirt. Neither of us are dealing with misplaced guilt or vague affection for a dead dick. Deal?” Locus nods, and he presses on. “Second: Simmons, huh?”

It's probably a good thing Tucker took the shirt. Locus likely would have torn it further. “I have no idea what you're talking about.”

“God, it's like you're the _same person,_ ” Tucker mutters, but doesn't elaborate. “I just want to make sure you're, I don't know, okay? Those two don't know the meaning of subtle and I know you haven't been around much, but. Still. Yeah.”

“Yeah,” Locus echoes.

“Does this mean you're over Wash?” 

Locus can't stop himself from cringing. He's tried not to think about whatever that was, but there's a lot of time and little to do during space travel. Tucker sees his face and laughs. He keeps the topic lighter after that, talking about what he plans on cooking later and Carolina's ongoing quest to relax and the fact both freelancers are finally back at a healthy weight not that Tucker was concerned or anything. 

All the laundry gets folded and piled and set neatly back in the basket. Both Tucker and Locus stare at the baby pink _“killin’ it”_ crop top for moment before Tucker just tosses it on top, scoops up the basket, and steps out, yelling, “Hey Donut, bad news…”

The distraught shrieking makes Locus a little ashamed, so he makes a mental note to replace the shirt. 

_‘I thought I did for a while there.’_

There’s so much _everything_ , for a moment. Shame and grief and fury, too much for his body to contain. He needs _something_ , to be busy, to not think, to make it easier to push this down until there’s nothing and he’s empty and someone else can make these choices for him-

Stop. 

He’s done that. Made that mistake, been that monster. 

He goes, once more, to the Truth.

One. He is a monster. Locus chose emptiness because he could not suffer humanity.

Two. He doesn’t know what he knows. Nothing He ever said can be trusted.

Three. Felix used and manipulated him. 

He clings to the Truth, repeats it like a mantra once, twice. Then—

Four. Locus loved him. 

Five. He didn’t anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> um. sorry? for the wait?


	6. Chapter 6

_Oh boy, you better slow it down_  
_You’re running on unsolid ground_  
_She’ll never slow dance with you_  
_-Oh Boy by BOY_

 

* * *

 

Locus takes a while to himself the next morning to turn this new revelation over in his head. It still hurts to think about Isaac, aches like he's dying, but he's slowly coming to terms with the knowledge that Isaac has been gone a long time. 

(It's not just Isaac he misses. He's been seeing Megan and Mason in the others, comparing their mannerisms before he can stop and feeling unsteady afterwards.)

Simmons had poked his head in to invite him to breakfast a few hours ago, but Tucker had shouted something from the kitchen that sounded like “Rule Fourteen!” and Simmons immediately tried to retreat gracefully. He brought tea a few minutes later, though, passing it over and heading back down the hall.

“Here,” he’d said. “Grif made it. I stopped him before he put anything in.”

The tea is stone-cold on the nightstand where Locus has been staring at it. It's overbrewed and bitter, but it _means_ something. It's an attempt to meet him where he is. It's glaring proof that these people care enough to remember his preferences, even if their attempts to make them are clumsy.

They care. It's been a while since he's had that. 

He has to eat eventually, though. The bullet wound is still healing, and though Sarge has some incredible painkillers(Locus has decided not to ask), they do still wear off, and his shoulder hurts like a bitch. So he gathers up the mug and his courage and heads out. 

He's barely out of his room when he hears Grif shout, “Oh, bullshit!”

All of the others are gathered in kitchen. Grif is pointing at Tucker accusingly.

“It's fucking color theory, Grif,” Tucker shoots back. “You need blue to make green. Thus, Locus is Blue Team.”

“Green and red are complementary colors,” Simmons argues. “He’s a Red, so, uh, suck it, Blue.”

“By that logic, Grif is Blue Team.” Wash sits at the counter, writing something in booklet. From where Locus stands, it looks like sudoku. He doesn't look up when he speaks.

“Done,” Sarge says, and Simmons makes a distressed sound.

“You got the last two Freelancers,” Donut chimes in. “It's only fair we get the next one.”

“He’s not a Freelancer, your argument is invalid,” Tucker says without hesitation. “Blue Team.”

“Red Team.” Grif steps into Tucker's personal space so Tucker has to look up at him.

“I will punch you in the dick,” Tucker threatens, and Locus figures it's time to step in. 

“Technically, I'm neither.”

“Well, _yes_ ,” Caboose tells him, “we _know_ that. That's why we're fighting about who gets you.”

“I don't understand,” he says. His shoulder hurts. He just wants food and Sarge’s possibly-illegal painkillers.

“Just roll with it,” Carolina says. She looks at him for a second. “You're due more painkillers.”

Locus feels the overwhelming urge to swear his life to her for a second. Sarge bolts from the room towards his garage faster than a man his age should be able to.

“We should change the dressing, too,” Simmons says. “We should have done it this morning, but. Rule Fourteen.”

“Rule Fourteen,” Caboose agrees. 

Locus has had too many emotions lately to deal with this, so he just stares at Simmons.

It's Wash that explains. “Rule fourteen of ‘Care and Feeding of Washingtons’.” Tucker swears, and Wash grins at him almost maliciously. “Yeah, I know about it. Rule Fourteen is something like ‘don't bother Wash when he's processing emotions’ or something like that. Guess we're applying the rules to you now.”

“I hate everyone in this room,” Tucker declares, “except Locus. Locus is my new best friend.”

“Honestly, that's fair.” Wash goes back to his puzzles.

“Babe, no-" Tucker tries to backpedal, but Sarge bursts back into the kitchen with a hypodermic needle and a tiny jar of… something Locus still is not asking about. Tucker throws his hands up and Wash snickers into his book.

Donut shoos everyone from the kitchen. Surprisingly, he knows the most first aid out of all of them and works efficiently, changing the bandages in a couple minutes. Grif and Tucker bicker their way back into the kitchen when he’s done, arguing about the best way to make grilled cheese. The painkillers kick in and the world seems far more inviting.

Wash pokes his head in. “Are we doing grilled cheese for lunch?”

Tucker turns and points at him. “I’m doing grilled cheese for Locus, because Locus doesn’t keep secrets from me like my _boyfriend_ does, apparently.”

“Except I have the spatula,” Grif says. “Suck it, Blue.”

Tucker vaults the counter and lunges for the spatula, but Grif dances back a couple steps, holding it above his head. They’re both grinning, laughing, and it’s probably the painkillers but for a second, Locus remembers him and Isaac having the same fight and he aches in a way that has nothing to do with the bullet wound.

Wash tilts his head a little. “Grif, didn’t Lopez say something about Locus’s ship this morning?”

“I wouldn’t know, because I don’t speak Spanish, but if I had to _guess_ , I would say he said something about the ship being possessed.” Grif relinquishes the spatula and Tucker smacks him with it. “Ow, shit.”

“I should check on that.” Locus climbs to his feet, already inching towards the back door. 

“I’ll come get you when food is done,” Grif promises, already trying to micromanage Tucker, who looks one wrong step away from hitting Grif with a frying pan. Locus slips out the door and crosses the grassy space to A’rynasea.

The lights dim to a soft green as soon as he steps foot inside, and he almost smiles. He presses a hand to the walls and whispers, “Thank you. You saved me.”

The lights brighten, shifting from green to white to gold. The engines purr. He gets the message: _Of course I did._

“You’re scaring the robot, you know,” Locus tells the ship. The engine’s hum gets momentarily louder, and the light edges more into yellow. It’s _smug_. 

Deeper in, the door to a storage closet slides open. Locus understands the question; he’s had A’rynasea long enough they can communicate. “I’m healing. I’m sorry I haven’t told you yet. They were afraid I would leave.”

The light shifts red and pulses. _I wouldn’t have let you._

Locus rolls his eyes. The lights snap back to white and glaring so fast he has vertigo, leaning heavily against his braced hand.

“Were you talking to your ship?” 

Locus turns. Grif is watching him from the grass outside, one eyebrow raised. He took the few steps up A’rynasea’s boarding ramp and bumped Locus with his hip. “Well? Were you? It’s fine, Sarge talks to the Warthogs all the time.”

A’rynasea’s flickers its lights indignantly. There’s a second where Grif registers what just happened, and the lights dim very slowly.

“Did it… react to me?”

“I believe… it has some level of sentience,” Locus says. A’rynasea turns its lights green, then orange. Grif turns slow circle, eyes full of wonder.

He turns that awestruck look to Locus, A’rynasea’s lights softening to gold, and Locus feels his heart skip.

Son of a _bitch_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


	7. Chapter 7

_Written in graffiti on a bridge in a park_  
_Do you ever get the feeling_  
_That you're missing the mark?_  
_-Hurts Like Heaven by Coldplay_

 

* * *

 

Simmons checks out the window: Locus is rifling through A’rynasea’s engines with Lopez across the lawn, arm in a sling. Simmons hadn’t let him go out without it, too afraid he’d pop stitches and bleed out or something. (There had been so much blood, and sometimes Simmons can still see it when he closes his eyes.) 

“They’re busy,” he says.

“Good,” Grif says, hooking an arm around Simmons’s waist and dragging him down to sit on the couch. “We can start this meeting. Are we writing a new set of rules? ‘How to Save Grasshoppers?’”

Wash snorts from his spot on the floor. He’s leaning back against Tucker’s legs.

Tucker glares at him. “I’m still furious with you, by the way.”

“No you’re not,” Wash says without hesitation. “Focus.”

“We’re here to talk about _Locus_.” Donut drags the meeting back on track. “Have you noticed that he never eats?”

“He eats, just after everyone,” Grif tells them. “I think he went through a time where he was food insecure.” 

Tucker flinches. “That makes a whole lot of sense, actually.”

“Food insecurity?” Carolina asks. Simmons is grateful- he doesn’t know what it means either.

“Food insecurity is when you’re not sure if you’re gonna afford to eat,” Grif explains. “I’m guessing, because I haven’t actually _asked him_ , but I, uh. I know some of those habits.” There’s a moment where they watch, wait, and Grif sighs heavily. “Everyone else gets a full calorie load first. Make sure there’s something left, because you might not eat tomorrow if you don’t.” He shrugs. “I’m finally breaking them because it hasn’t been an issue in over a decade. It must have been more recent for him.”

“Jesus Christ,” Wash says softly.

“It gets worse.” Tucker’s voice is bitter and sharp, and all of them immediately sort of tune in. Tucker only takes that tone when talking about Felix. “Turns out, I was a homewrecker! I almost wish I could bring him back and _set him on fire_.”

“You mean…” Donut doesn’t finish the sentence, but Simmons can see the distress _he_ feels echoed in his face. Tucker nods, mouth set in a grim line. There’s an understanding that they don’t make him talk about it. The haunted, self-loathing look in his eyes says enough.

A deep, spiteful part of Simmons whispers ‘I told you that would be a mistake.’ He squashes it with a vengeance. 

Wash twists to look at Tucker. “You gonna be okay?”

“Fine.” He makes a point to look all of them in the eye. “You do not get to bring this up with him.”

“Of course,” Simmons whispers. The others echo his agreement. They’re all shaken, but Grif drops his head into his hands.

“Jesus Christ, why did he ever come back,” Grif groans. “I asked if he _missed_ him, fuck me.”

“When?” Sarge asks, voice harsh.

“Rescue,” Grif says.

“You were basically delirious, he probably doesn’t hold it against you,” Simmons tells him softly. It’s been almost two years, but he can still hear Locus’s words in the alien temple: _I’m doing this for **me**_. There’s so much more weight to it now. Locus’s hesitance with them, that hollow look he gets when he thinks no one is looking, they mean _more_ , and it feels like he’s been hit with a brick.

He'd let them kill Felix. He'd stepped back and let them murder his _partner_ , in every sense of the word, then came to save them later. It's impossible to wrap his head around. 

God, what's been going on in Locus's head these past months?

“No wonder he kept running,” Donut breathes, almost inaudible. “Well, that, and-” He cuts himself off. Tucker looks up at him.

“You noticed, too?” 

“Of course. He’s not very subtle.”

“About what?” Grif asks. He’s probably latching onto literally any subject change at this point, and Simmons doesn’t blame him. He doesn’t want to consider the implications of this anymore, either.

Tucker, Donut, and Sarge turn to just _look_ at him. “Of course you haven’t noticed.” Sarge rolls his eyes. “Your about as observant as a pile of bricks.”

“Hey!”

The kitchen door creaks and all of them turn to the sound. Locus eyes them warily and he closes the door behind him.

“I believe I popped a stitch,” he says, far too calm. Donut throws himself off the couch and down the hall for the first aid kit, and the meeting sort of dissolves as they deal with that.

 

* * *

 

Grif waits until Simmons is almost asleep to bring it up. “Do you think Locus is hot?”

Simmons sits straight up and looks at him. “What?”

“Locus.” Grif props himself up on one elbow. “Hot. Yes or no?”

_Yes_ , Simmons thinks immediately. Of course he is. It’s a different kind of attraction than he’s used to, not bred from time and familiarity, but it’s attraction nonetheless. 

Grif is still going. “Because honestly? If he asked me suck his dick I’d hit my knees so fucking fast.”

He chokes. Grif is making direct eye contact, completely unashamed. “Yeah,” Simmons agrees, very, very softly. Grif grins in triumph, and that jars him out of his shock. “What the fuck, Grif?” 

“You’re thinking too hard.”

“What does that even mean?”

“What it means,” Grif says, tone shifting into something serious, “is that whatever happened? We can’t do anything about. He came back because something we were doing was something he wanted to be a part of. So why change our regular brand of bullshit when it works?”

Simmons stares at him for a second. “I think that might be the smartest thing you’ve ever said.”

“I say a lot of smart things, you just haven’t been listening.” Grif grabs Simmons’s arm and yanks him down onto his chest. “Don’t fix what ain’t broke.”

“I will pay you to never say ‘ain’t’ again.” Simmons snuggles into Grif’s side. “Do you really think he’s hot, though?”

“Fuck yeah. Are we not looking at the same dude? I’m pretty sure all of would go down on him.”

“Please don’t make me think about what our friends find sexy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pretty sure you have to intentionally go after a married man to be a homewrecker, Tucker. you were a side ho at best.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> everyone in my discord server is a fucking gift u know who u are

_And I've moved further than I thought I could_  
_But I missed you more than I thought I would_  
_And I'll use you as a warning sign_  
_That if you talk enough sense then you'll lose your mind_  
_-I Found by Amber Run_

 

* * *

 

Locus is doing his typical morning panic before heading to grab breakfast when Tucker walks in and lays on his floor.

“I’m just gonna die here, thanks,” he says, face-down on the carpet. He’s shirtless, which Locus has never seen before, and his back is covered in bright teal script tattoos. At least, Locus thinks it’s script. It’s certainly alien.

“Please don’t die on my floor,” he says.

Tucker flips over and points at him. “You said it’s yours, I heard it, this is your room. You live here.”

Locus doesn’t deign to answer. “Can I help you, Captain Tucker?”

“Distract me until the painkillers kick in.” He drops his arm across his eyes.

“Is your par- is Washington unsuitable?”

“‘My partner?’ He’s my boyfriend, Locus, that’s the word we’re using. And he’s sleeping. Had a bad night, may have kneed me in the crotch. Great wake up call. Made everything down there hurt worse.”

“Thus the painkillers?”

“Nah, those are for cramps.”

It’s only then Locus notices the scars on Tucker’s chest. Something warm settles in his stomach- he did not expect to find an ally here.

“I see,” he says. Hesitantly, he joins Tucker on the floor, cross-legged. The last time they were alone together still rings in his mind.

“C’mere.” Tucker beckons him closer. “Lay with me in my misery.”

“You’re worse than she was,” Locus mutters, thinking of how Megan used to drape herself over Isaac and groan dramatically. (She had been taller than him. Isaac was furious about it.)

“Worse that who?” Tucker asks, peering out from under his arm, and Locus freezes. The panic must show on his face, because he lifts his hands in surrender. “Alright, never mind. It’s fine.”

It’s not, not really, but Locus can’t find it in him to explain. Thinking about Megan and Mason still hurts like a knife wound. Tucker stares at him for a second before rolling back over to press his face into the floor. Locus can see the tension knotted in the muscles of his back.

He rolls his shoulder gently. He had not, in fact, popped a stitch several days ago, and it hurt far less after nearly three weeks. “I can… help.”

“Hmm?”

“With the pain,” he clarifies. When Tucker looks at him, he- surprisingly- finds the words he needs. “I. Had a friend. Before. She often couldn’t function around her cramps, so we- so I learned how to help.”

Tucker slowly tilts his head to the side. “You’re either offering to rub my back or trying to fuck me. At this point I’m down for either, because both would help, but I gotta talk to Wash before the second one.”

Locus wonders if climbing out the window to escape this interaction is overreacting.

“Alright, no sex jokes,” Tucker says, “but I will kill for a backrub. Seriously, do you have any enemies?”

“You,” he says without thinking.

Tucker breaks out laughing. “Oh, fuck, it hurts to laugh. Ow.”

There’s several moments of awkwardness before Tucker looks at him expectantly. Locus straightens his spine and shifts to where he can actually work the knots from Tucker’s muscles.

He ends up straddling his knees, the heels of his hands pressing into Tucker’s hips. He goes boneless beneath him.

“How the fuck were we ever scared of you?” Tucker mutters after a moment. “You’re fuckin’ harmless.”

“I could shoot at you again,” Locus replies.

“Oh my god. Oh my god, you make jokes, why are you a Red?”

Locus’s hands still for a moment in surprise. “Wha- I’m not a Simulation Trooper, what do mean?”

“First, we kicked your ass, so don’t call us Sim Troopers. Second, doesn’t matter. If you hang with us you end up on a team. Like Wash is a Blue, and Carolina does her weird in-between thing where she wears blue but is probably a Red at heart. You’re a Red, because Blue Team doesn’t have space for useless pining. We have shit to do.”

“I am not pining.”

“You are, and it’s good. Wash helps me work out all the shit Felix did, you should have someone to do that with.”

Locus flinches at the name, but it’s less violent than it has been. “I don’t need to talk about it.”

“Don’t lie to me when you’re literally on top of me, Locus.”

“Please don’t say it like that.”

Tucker snorts. “You should, though. Talk about it. Might be less angry at yourself. I was- I hated myself so much for falling for it, because, I dunno, I didn’t fall for it? I knew it didn’t fucking mean anything, but I did it anyway.”

There’s silence for a while, broken only by Tucker’s small pained noises as Locus works knots from his back. “I loved him,” Locus finally says, and it hurts like he’s dying to admit. “It wasn’t… It was good once. I thought it was. I don’t know anymore.”

Tucker twists underneath him, so Locus lets him up. He doesn’t expect the hug. 

“Why the fuck did we love him?” Tucker asks, voice soft and hurt. 

Locus doesn’t have an answer. He doesn’t remember the last time he was touched without the intent to hurt, and it’s just shy of overwhelming. 

He doesn’t really want it to stop, but Tucker does let go eventually. “We should start a club. _The Idiots that Fucked Felix._ ”

It’s incredibly accurate. “Absolutely not.” 

“Little too on the nose, ya think?”

No. “Yes.”

“Perfect, subtlety is for pussies.” 

Locus laughs. It’s short and startled and more of scoff than anything, but it’s a _laugh_ , and when was the last time he did that? 

Tucker nudges him with an elbow. He’s grinning. “I put Grif in charge of breakfast today which was hopefully not a mistake. Time for food, let’s go.”

He goes.


	9. Chapter 9

_But the loneliness never left me_  
_I always took it with me_  
_But I can put it down in the pleasure of your company_  
_-No Choir by Florence + the Machine_

 

* * *

 

Locus starts… trying. He tries a lot of things, actually—isolating less, learning more. Wash likes absurd amounts of sugar in his coffee. Sarge insults Grif and the “damn dirty Blues”, but knows more about their likes and dislikes than Locus suspects _they_ do. Tucker talks loud and big and confident but sometimes he’s quiet and subdued; these are the times Caboose attaches to his side like a burr. Donut compensates extremely well, but he’s deaf in one ear, probably from whatever incident left those plasma burns on his face.

Grif has a sister.

That shocks him. Locus knew on some distant level that these men had families somewhere( ~~David Fairfield, middle of five, all his siblings sisters~~ ), but hearing it was different. 

“You heard from Kai recently?” Tucker asks Grif one morning.

“She’s handling some sort of music festival in Brioso,” Grif answers, not really paying attention.

Locus is lurking in the back of the room next to Lopez. “Who is Kai?” he asks the robot.

_“His sister, Kaikaina,”_ Lopez says. He manages to sound irritated even with the limits of vocal modulator. _“She shows up occasionally. Our doors are somehow stuck when she is here. Keeps insects out surprisingly well.”_

Locus’s brain had stalled on ‘sister’, but the last part registers. _“You were the one that locked me out?”_

“That was sexy as fuck.”

Locus jerks around to look at the rest of the room. Most of them are looking at him, and Tucker rests his chin on his hands. “Your voice and Spanish? I’m extremely turned on.”

Locus chokes, and Wash smacks the back of Tucker’s head. 

“He’s not _wrong_ ,” Donut says. Locus wonders if A’rynasea will let him leave tonight so he doesn’t have to face these people again. (He can almost feel Megan laughing at him. She used to try and fluster him like this all the time.)

“Alright, that’s enough,” Simmons says sternly, and Locus almost convinces himself that his stomach didn’t burst into butterflies at that. 

_“Now you can talk with me, too!”_

Locus turns to see Caboose sitting cross-legged on the floor, beaming up at him. “What?”

“You can talk with me,” Caboose says again. “Grif pretends he can’t and Lopez pretends not to like us-”

_“He is incorrect, I hate you all.”_

“-but now you can!” 

One day, perhaps, these men will stop surprising him. “I didn’t know you knew Spanish. Why didn’t I know that?” The last part is muttered mostly to himself, but Caboose sighs anyway.

“You didn’t _ask_ , and I did not want to be _rude_.”

Locus, well, Locus is angry with himself. Felix had called Caboose “an idiot, but an overpowered one,” and Locus had trusted his judgement. He’s learning, lately, that Caboose is far more intelligent than he seems, even if he sees things differently.

Mason would be ashamed of his snap judgements.

Now, though, Caboose is grinning up at him, like he hasn’t just offered Locus the chance to speak his mother tongue for the first time in nearly a decade.

_“Of course_ ,” Locus replies, the “r” rolling pleasantly in his mouth. Caboose unfolds in one smooth motion and launches himself up to wrap Locus in his arms and. Oh.

Sam missed hugs like this.

 

* * *

 

Caboose invites himself into Locus’s room the next day, lays on the floor, and starts talking about his _seventeen sisters._ Not a single word is in English, and Locus just listens, about Andromeda the Oldest and Cecilia the Next and every other name that Caboose lists faster than he can keep up with. Eventually Caboose taps him and asks, _“Do you have any sisters?”_

_“Yes,”_ he says, thinking of Megan, and goes still. Somehow, the thought of her doesn’t hurt. Caboose sits up and leans it. _“I miss her.”_ And it doesn’t kill him to admit it, for once. _“And her husband.”_

_“You should call them. I called my sisters last week and they were all very excited.”_

Locus… wants to. He wants to hear their voices, wants to know if UNSC accepted the anonymous tip he left about the death of Corporal Isaac Gates and passed it to the listed next of kin, wants to ask about their daughter that he never got to meet.

Then he remembers he’s a monster, and shakes his head. _“I shouldn’t.”_

Caboose nods, accepting this without question. _“That is okay. We can be your family, too.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> posting in a rush with no editing like a responsible writer YEAH  
> 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had something I was gonna say but i don't remember it anymore

_Had to have high, high hopes for a living_  
_Didn't know how but I always had a feeling_  
_I was gonna be that one in a million_  
_Always had high, high hopes_  
_-High, High Hopes by Panic! at the Disco_

 

* * *

 

The first supply drop since Locus came to stay had been in those first few pain-hazy days, and the second comes two days after he starts Spanish "practice" with Caboose. There's tea in it: more Earl Grey, a lavender-chamomile blend, and a couple ounces of loose leaf rooibos.

Locus hates rooibos; to him, it tastes like cough syrup and nightmares, but Megan loved it. The smell never really faded from the Wu's kitchen, or her clothes, and when he opens the tea tin to see what's inside he almost looks for her. 

He steeps the biggest mug he can find and curls up in the corner of the couch. It's as terrible as he remembers but it reminds him of the last place that felt like home. 

Caboose drops onto the couch and leans against him, heavy and solid. He weighs more than Mason used to, when Mason would go searching for something grounding and Megan wasn't home, but it's still comforting. It feels like family.

Locus has been here for a month, he realizes. It’s the longest he’s stayed in any one place since he left Ithaca twelve years ago. 

_“I wanna try,”_ Caboose says, reaching for the mug. Locus hands it over without complaint, feels validated when Caboose’s face scrunches in disgust. He takes it back and sips. Yep, still awful.

“I could have told you you wouldn’t like it from the smell, ‘Boose,” Tucker says, sweeping into the den with a handful of chocolate bars. “Here, both of you get one. I hid the rest so Grif couldn’t find them.”

Caboose rips his open immediately, breaking off a piece and popping it into his mouth. Locus sets his in his lap. When was the last time he had chocolate? He can’t remember. 

Chorus. It was Chorus- one of the Feds had gotten ahold of chocolate and cinnamon and made hot chocolate with it. She had shyly handed him a mug, thanking him softly for saving her life the other day…

He shakes off the memory and washes the taste of cinnamon from his mouth with rooibos. He makes a face before he can stop himself.

“You don’t like it either!” Caboose accuses. “Wash does that too, has coffee without sugar because he hates it and he thinks he should be unhappy.”

Tucker grabs for the mug, but Locus evades his hands without spilling. “Someone I used to know likes it,” he explains. 

“Let him drink his fucking tea, Tucker, goddamn.” Grif leans against the doorway. “Chocolate. Where.”

Tucker throws a bar at him. “You get one, or none of us will ever have any.”

“Are we having a chocolate party?” Carolina appears behind Grif, who already has his chocolate held in his teeth.

“Yes!” Caboose says. “Chocolate and bad tea.”

Wash and Simmons gravitate to the room for candy, too, eventually.

“One,” Simmons tells Grif. 

“Fine,” Grif huffs.

“Damn it, why couldn’t you two get together on Chorus?” Tucker complains. “Grif might have actually gotten shit done.” 

Locus is a little glad they didn’t. He’s afraid of what Grif is capable of if he applies himself. In the past month, he’s seen the sharp intelligence in his eyes. Yet another thing Felix had underestimated.

There’s a lot about Grif that raises questions, now that Locus is paying attention. He had too many coping skills for isolation, held together far better than he should have after an indeterminate amount of time alone. He also tends to put food in reaching distance from everyone at every possible chance. Locus is still trying to figure out why.

“I didn’t actually know I liked him, then,” Simmons mutters under his breath.

“That's because you were busy having a giant fucking crush on Wash,” Grif says, and Simmons turns the same color as his shirt. There’s a moment where Locus wonders if it’s possible for Simmons's flesh hand to crush a chocolate bar.

“Shut up Grif!” he screeches.

Wash starts laughing. “Wait, really?”

“Yes,” Simmons admits sullenly, “but you and Tucker were obviously _desperately_ pining for each other so I just sort of. Avoided you.”

“You should've said something,” Wash says, leaning towards Simmons with a smirk. “Wouldn't be the first time I was bedhopping.”

“WHAT?” Tucker shrieks. If Simmons turns any redder he might pass out. 

“North and York,” Carolina says, counting them out on her fingers. “Maine. Connie?”

“Connie,” Wash confirms. “Iowa, once, before I joined Alpha Squad- that was interesting and I almost kinda regret it- uhhh. I propositioned South and got punched for it?”

“Oh my god,” Tucker says, delighted. “You were a manwhore.”

“Hey,” Wash says. “I was in a committed relationship with two of those people, and pretty much all of Alpha Squad was sleeping with each other.”

“You're talking about them,” Carolina says gently, smiling. “You wouldn't, a year ago.”

Wash shrugs. “Didn't want to bring up York. I know you loved him, too.”

“Wait,” Simmons interrupts. “Both of you?”

“I'm poly,” Wash says. “Polyamorous?” 

Locus sits up straighter. He hadn’t expected that.

Simmons, however, looks _embarrassed_. “Which means?”

“Which means I like more than one person at once, and negotiated a way to date all of them the same time.”

“Norkington,” Carolina mutters, and Wash looks at her.

“I'd forgotten that,” he murmurs, toying with his empty candy wrapper. “We had another one, for you, uh. Shit, what-”

“Yorklina,” she told him. “Yorkalina? One of those.”

“Back up, back up, back up,” Simmons says. “You can date more than one person? At once?”

Grif starts swearing furiously. Locus startles and looks at him. Grif snags Simmons arm and drags him from the room.

“Oh my god, it worked,” Carolina says. She nudges Wash with an elbow. “By the way, I- I have one of York's stupid flip lighters, if you want.”

“I have a bunch of pictures,” Wash tells her. “I'll give you copies if you want to remind me of some other stuff I've lost.” He looks at Tucker quickly. “I mean, unless-”

Tucker waves him off, grinning at Locus. “Wow, Wash, no. I’m not gonna stop you from talking to Carolina about _anyone_. Besides, I have plans to make, now.”

Locus doesn't like that tone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love Simmons but I also firmly believe that he grew up sheltered and then just never encountered poly as an adult.
> 
> ask me about my freelancer polycule on [tumblr](https://boxonthenile.tumblr.com).


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have NO EXCUSE orz

_We don't talk about it_  
_We don't have the time_  
_We thought love was something_  
_We weren't meant to find_  
_-August by flipturn_

 

* * *

 

_**TKR:** emergency blue team meeting in five get dnt and crl and sgt_

Tucker looks over the array of people in his and Wash’s room: Caboose on the floor with Wash leaning against his side, Carolina cross-legged against the bed, Donut perched on the mattress, and Sarge standing at the back near the window. 

“Why aren’t Simmons and Grif here?” Carolina asks, glancing around. “Are they late?”

“They were not invited,” Caboose says.

“Because they’re part of the reason we’re having this meeting.” Tucker pulls the attention back to himself. He’s leading this meeting, thank you very much. “It’s time for Operation: Grimus.”

“Grimace?” Donut asks, making a face. “That sounds unpleasant.”

“G-R-I-M-U-S. It’s a mashup of Grif, Simmons, and Locus.”

“Like a celebrity ship name?”

“Exactly. I got the idea from Wash and ‘Lina’s ‘norkington’ or whatever.”

“But _grimus_?” 

“Logrimmons,” Sarge says, and Donut gasps in delight.

“Of course!”

Tucker sighs. “Alright, Operation: _Logrimmons_ , but we have to do something. Please. Before I lose my fucking mind.”

“It’s almost worse than Grif and Simmons alone,” Wash agrees, and Caboose nods.

“Obviously we have to get them together,” Tucker continues. “I can’t handle another three years of pining.”

“Five,” Sarge and Donut say together. Tucker feels a mix of horror, fear, and awe. There's a weariness in that one word that he cannot comprehend. 

“Hypothetically,” Carolina says, “let's say I agreed with you, and decided not to mind my own business about it. What would we do?”

“Hypothetically,” Wash snorts. “When have you ever stayed in your lane, Carolina? Name one time.”

“You and Tucker.”

“Except you didn't!” Wash stops leaning on Caboose so he can face Carolina better. “You told me to get my shit together before you did it for me!”

“And you got your shit together.” She pauses. “That proved your point. Fuck.”

Tucker wants to let them keep this up, because he knows what it means to them, but he can’t afford to let this go off track before it even gets started. “To answer ‘Lina’s question,” he says loudly, pulling their attention back to him, “that’s what the meeting is for.”

“We’ve _done_ this already,” Donut groaned, tipping back to lay on the bed. “We tried everything, Sarge and me. Put them on patrols together, on kitchen duty together, I even flooded Grif's room once back in Blood Gulch so they had to share a bed for a week. Nothing.”

Tucker stares. “How did you _flood_ it? In Blood Gulch!”

“Not the important part there, aquaman,” Sarge says. Tucker flips him off. 

“I'm hoping Locus is less of a moron,” Tucker says.

Wash is shaking his head before Tucker finishes his sentence. “No. I know where he's at; he doesn't believe he deserves to be here at all, let alone be _happy_. If we want this to have a chance at all, it has to come from Grif.”

“Simmons,” Tucker corrects, though he's not sure he agrees. Everyone but Caboose looks confused. “Locus had a big, gay crush on _Simmons_ first. Did you think…?”

“I knew,” Caboose said. “He’s not as good at hiding it as Grif was.”

“Grif was pretty subtle for a while, wasn't he?” Donut muses, and this is derailing again. Tucker isn't sure what he expected.

He makes desperate eye contact with Wash, who shrugs serenely _like an asshole_. He glances pointedly at the door and Tucker knows what he's saying. 

It's time for Blue Team to get shit done.

He walks out of the room without explanation. If all three of these idiots are too stupid to take hints, he’s taking the direct approach.

Tucker knows where he'll find the others: Grif and Simmons had been _losing their minds_ over the fact that A'rynasea is, actually, alive and have been damn near camping out in the ship trying to communicate. Locus is probably fucking dying under the strain of suppressing his feelings.

The docking ramp extends as he approaches and, okay, that's pretty fucking cool. He pokes his head into the cockpit. “Can I borrow Locus?”

Locus glances up at him, carefully tucking his hair behind his ear. “Is something wrong?” He looks concerned, and Tucker realizes he considers this man his friend. 

He _definitely_ has to get Locus laid now. And, well, loved and appreciated. But the point remains. 

“Nah, nothing serious, just a couple questions.”

“Then ask,” Simmons says, scowling. “She's finally answering us.”

“No, it's really not,” Locus says. He stands from where he was settled on the floor. “Stay,” he tells Grif and Simmons firmly. Grif blows a raspberry. 

“What did you-” Locus starts, but Tucker grabs both his biceps and he cuts off, hands coming up to wrap around Tucker's forearms. Shit, Tucker just broke Rule fucking Four like he's a _Red_ or something. 

“You know they're into you, right?” he asks. “Like, you're not a dumbass and you _see it_ , right?”

Locus's eyes flick to the side, refusing to meet his gaze. “I don't believe you,” he says softly, and Tucker want to scream. He understands why Donut beat him over the head back on Chorus, now.

“Oh my _god_ ,” he says, genuinely distressed. “You really don't believe me, you _are_ a Red. Only Reds are this emotionally incompetent.”

Locus goes to pull away, and Tucker lets go. “I haven't figured out what they want from me, yet, but-”

Tucker can guess where his mind is going. He's not sure what kind of relationship Locus had with Felix, but he can guess.

_‘We need each other.’_

“You know they don't want _anything_ , right?” Tucker says. “That's not how this works. And even if they did, you don't have to give anything you don't want to.”

Locus doesn't answer, just makes his way back up the boarding ramp. Tucker wants nothing more than to stop him, to drag him by goddamn _ear_ to a patented Blue Team Cuddle Pile and show him love and family are supposed to work, but.

But he thinks Locus knows that, he's just given up on having it, and it makes him furious. 

His tablet chimes, and he digs it out of his pocket.

_**GRF:** were working on it jackass_

He snorts. Maybe they were just hopeless with each other.

_**TKR:** you better be explicit. he's got some bad conceptions of romance _


	12. Chapter 12

_It's darkest before the dawn_  
_But you don't need to do this alone_  
_No you don't_  
_'Cause when you get this close, you can feel the heat_  
_Now you're so afraid of what's underneath_  
_Oh, don't_  
_-Even If It Hurts by Sam Tinnesz_

 

* * *

 

Locus is waiting for the kettle to boil when Grif sweeps into the kitchen with Simmons at his heels. Locus lifts an eyebrow at the determined expressions they both wear. 

_“You know they’re both into you,”_ flits across his brain, and he stops himself from physically shaking off the thought. The very concept is absurd.

“Do you need something?” Locus asks once they’ve stopped. 

“Yes,” Grif tells him, and elbows Simmons. Simmons elbows him back. Locus waits as they both furiously try to jab each other in the ribs for several seconds.

“Fuck, fine,” Simmons says finally, already turning scarlet. The familiar, comfortable butterflies rise in Locus’s belly. “So. Locus. Do, uh, do you maybe, uh-”

“We think you’re pretty cool and we want to know if you will grace us with that coolness and possibly also make out.”

He’s only dimly aware of Simmons’s berating “Grif!” He finally knew what they wanted. He’d hoped it was something he’d be able to give.

The kettle whistles, high pitched and shrill and distant and barely audible over the pounding of his heart. That hollow space in his chest yawns open, aching and _We need each other_.

“Locus?” A hand touches his arm and he jerks away, he can't give this, he can't give them all he is so soon. He would have been content to orbit them forever, but he's too selfish to give himself up again, and he doesn't want to take.

Simmons pulls his hand back. “Right, rule four,” he says. “Locus, I think you're having a panic attack. Can I touch you?”

“Don't,” he says. He's afraid he'll give in if they comfort him now. 

“Sims, c'mere.” Grif tugs Simmons back a few steps, opening a clear path between him and the kitchen door.

“What's going- Locus!”

He barely hears Tucker's shout over the slam of the back door. His feet pound up the boarding ramp and he rushes for the control console as A'rynasea closes the airlock behind him.

The console doesn't boot up.

Locus hits the top. “A'rynasea, open navigation.”

The console doesn't boot up.

“A'rynasea!”

She dims her lights, flashes them yellow three times. That's an established signal for when she needs a moment to convey a complex idea.

“I don't care, just-”

The console screen goes red as her lights flare white. He's upset her. Guilt surges and fills his heart. “I'm sorry,” he says softly. “Please. Let's go.”

The console darkens, and her lights soften to gold, then slide into maroon, and back, a slow gradient loop.

Gold and Maroon. Grif and Simmons. She's keeping him here for them.

He slides to the ground and tucks his head between his knees. Why would they want him? Why would these two men who obviously love each other, who trust each with everything they are, decide to give parts of themselves to him?

He doesn't want to need anyone like he needed Felix. He knows it wasn't good, that they held too tight and took too much, but he doesn't think he knows another way to do this. 

But he wants. He's seen the softness they hold for each other, and the idea of that softness directed at him is overwhelming and frightening and so, so wonderful. 

_That's not how this works,_ Tucker's voice says in his mind. _You don't have to give anything you don't want to._

The thing is, there are parts he thinks he could, could _share_ , maybe. It's still so soon, he's holding selfishly to the identity he's slowly reclaiming. He can't give it up again, not yet. 

The air temperature shifts warmer, and Locus realizes he's shivering, still coming down from the panic attack. 

_You don't have to give anything you don't want to._

Is that how it worked, for them? They didn't take, just accepted what was offered? Could he lay boundaries, like…?

_(Mason looked up from the building blueprints as the door slammed open. Megan stormed past, muttering angrily in Tagalog._

_“Alexander again?” Mason called._

_“Not now!”_

_Mason nodded and turned back to the blueprints._

_“Aren't you going to go after her?” Isaac asked._

_“She told me not to,” he said.)_

Locus remembers being confused at the time. If it had been him, Isaac would have followed him until the anger broke and they fought and it blew over. But Mason waited for her, because she asked him to. 

Because she set a boundary.

He scrambles to his feet and grabs his tablet from its place in the tiny living quarters. He tucks himself in a corner on the floor and opens a new text file and writes. 

The first draft is full of disjointed sentences and requests. The second reads a little smoother. The third, he decides, is good enough.

“This is a bad idea,” he tells A'rynasea, like he's asking her to stop him. “They deserve better.”

Her lights flash, indignant. They pulse sage insistently. 

“So do I?” he tries. The plating at his back hums. “I don't.” The lights flash again. “It doesn't mean I won't.” 

The tablet in his hand chimes, A'rynasea using it to ask a question. “Rules. I can't do what I did. This one has to be different.”

It would be different.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You might note the formatting change. I am _slowly_ working my way through the rest of the chapters to adjust them, but I'm not changing much else. 
> 
> Also I finally, explicitly state Locus as genderfluid/genderqueer and Simmons as trans in this chapter and am updating the tags to match.

_I've been writing my thoughts down_  
_To clear my mind_  
_To try and figure out my brain_  
_To confront and set aside my pain_  
_-Patience by Bad Suns_

 

* * *

 

The moment Locus steps foot in the kitchen, half the room flees. It's almost enough to make him bolt again, but Grif snags Simmons's arm and pulls him into a chair and looks expectantly at Locus.

“So I recognize that probably wasn't the best way to do that and I'm sorry,” he says, and Locus is dumbstruck. 

“I- No, perhaps not,” he manages. His tablet hangs limply at his side. He moves hesitantly to sit. “But I'm sure you need an explanation.”

“We can guess, kinda,” Simmons says gently. “Tucker told us that you and, well. That your last boyfriend wasn't the greatest.”

Boyfriend. Locus doesn't think Felix _or_ Isaac had ever been called his boyfriend. His partner, always, from that first adrenaline-drunk kiss to prove they were both still alive. 

The thought of Isaac aches to his core. 

He doesn't know how to respond, so he doesn't. “I made rules.”

“Rules,” Simmons echoes. “You… yes?”

“I want to _try,_ ” Locus admits. He sets his tablet on the table, open to his list, and pushes it across to them. Grif takes it, and Simmons presses against his side so they can both read.

He's suddenly self conscious. Is he overstepping? Asking too much? He _wants_ this, but he can't _need_ someone like that again. He still isn't entirely sure who he is without Felix, he can't base his sense of self in someone else. 

But Grif is nodding to himself. “Most of the first, like, six is just basic relationship stuff, would’ve been doing it anyway. Can I suggest something or are these non-negotiable?” 

Locus almost, _almost_ says non-negotiable, but that’s not right, is it? He saw Megan and Mason–and when did they become his template?–discussing disputes and making compromises almost constantly. “I will consider any suggestions you have.”

“Neat, okay. Looks like you pulled from one of Wash’s rules here, with the time to process emotions, yeah?”

“Yes.” He used more than one of the rules as ideas.

“Talk to us about it after. Processing shit on your own is great and all, but unless we know what’s up afterwards, we can’t help. And trust me, _all_ of us are working on that.”

Simmons ducks his head sheepishly, then leans closer to the tablet. “Not partners,” he reads. “Do you have a preference for what we call you, then?”

“Boyfriend?” Grif offers.

“No,” Locus says immediately, then cringes a little. “I… prefer non-gendered terms, because… because my gender is not static.”

“Oh my god,” Simmons breathes, while Grif puts his head on the table and laughs. Simmons shoves him out of the chair. “You’re the only cis in the room,” Simmons whisper-yells, then leans across the table for a high-five. Dumbstruck, Locus taps his palm against Simmons’s. “Okay, okay, okay, that means there’s some important questions.”

“You’re-”

“Trans, yeah, Tucker and I bitch at each other. Pronouns?”

Locus hasn’t done this since he was a teenager, not the _discussion_ part. Normally he just corrected until it was respected or Isaac picked a fight with assholes. “He/him, mostly. They/them is also acceptable.” 

“He/him for me,” Simmons told him. Grif scrambled back into his chair. “We can work on that one later?”

Locus nods.

“Our turn?” Grif asks. Locus nods again. “Okay. _Eventually_ , not right now, but eventually, we want to talk about, well… everything. Felix. And Chorus.”

Locus’s gut lurches, guilt and shame and grief clawing at his chest. He can’t find his voice, but he nods. He owes them, _all_ of them, nothing less. 

“That’s not happening right now, though,” Simmons hovers his hand above the tablet, waiting for permission, and adds to the document when he receives it. “Also, this is a request from sort of everyone but definitely us: wait until your stitches are out and fully healed before you take off again, check in with us at _least_ daily, and come home every couple weeks.”

_Home_ knocks the breath straight from his lungs. _Home_ was Megan's kitchen filled with the scent of curry and the soft sound of her humming. _Home_ was Mason's disastrous personal fashion and the loud mocking that followed. 

Home was also coming to mean the sounds of Tucker and Caboose bickering softly to fill the silence, or Carolina asking him if he wants to run with her once his stitches come out, or sitting quietly with Wash in the predawn hours as they try and remember how to just _be_.

“That sounds reasonable,” he finally manages to say. 

“Simmons doesn’t like to talk about his family,” Grif says, bulldozing onwards, “and I will only talk about Kai, so don’t ask. Where are you with family discussions?”

Where does he stand? He hadn’t even considered them wanting to know about his family. “Not.. now. Eventually, perhaps.”

“So, basically like everyone else on this bullshit moon,” Grif tells him, but writes in the text file anyway. “I’m assuming you want to stay in your own room for a bit?”

“Yes,” Locus says quickly. He likes these men, could see things becoming something like _love_ given time, but not quite yet. He wasn't ready to give that much of himself to someone so soon.

“Understandable.” Simmons doesn't write that down, but he does look through the document again. “Alright, uh… I'm sure more shit will come up eventually and we'll handle it. Right? That's how this works?” He looks at Grif as though for guidance.

“How am I the only one in this triad who's had a healthy relationship before?” he sighs, looking up at the ceiling. “Yes, we'll handle it. Technically, we should probably have a sex discussion at some point, but _not while people are listening at the door._ ”

“We just want you to be happy,” comes Donut’s muffled reply.

Simmons blushes, mortified, and Grif laughs and kisses him. Then he leans across the table and kisses Locus, too. 

For a second, a _heartbeat_ , he feels like Sam again, sixteen and twitterpated, as butterflies burst in his chest. 

It's too brief and sweet to really kiss back, but Grif grins as he pulls away and calls “First!” Simmons screeches his name angrily.

Locus wonders if it's possible to wrap himself tight enough in this warm feeling that it never goes away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My tumblr remains boxonthenile but you may also find me on twitter at @nile_speaks.


End file.
